The film uncovers the secret history of how the Soviet Union used Islamists and dictators in the Middle East to further its objectives and how Vladimir Putin’s Russia continues this strategy today, endangering Americans and all freedom-loving peoples.

After World War II, the Soviet Union used Muslim intelligence assets to subvert neighboring Muslim-majority nations. Putin’s Russia continues to infiltrate Islamic communities around the world, including Chechnya, Iran, Syria and Palestine, and also at home in the United States, where Islamists and communists have joined in an unlikely alliance.

The film is narrated and written by conservative author Trevor Loudon, directed by Judd Saul and produced by Cohesion Films in partnership with Dangerous Documentaries (a project of the Capital Research Center). (Bombthrowers, too, is a project of Capital Research Center.)

The first film in our “America Under Siege” webseries, “Civil War 2017,” is available to view here.

Just when you thought the whole North Korea debacle was stagnating, things unfortunately got interesting this weekend. The first thing that happened is we found out that the US is sending 1,250 Marines to Australia. The North Koreans are claiming that we are staging our troops there for an invasion of the Hermit Kingdom. They are threatening to hit Sydney with nukes. I kind of doubt that they can, but who knows? As regional tensions escalate and a US carrier strike group approaches the Korean peninsula, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the secretive regime “must be stopped” as it represented a threat to the region and, potentially, globally. The NoKos have also threatened the USS Carl Vinson, vowing to strike and sink it.

But wait… there is much more afoot. China ostensibly cut off North Korea’s oil and gas supplies this weekend. Gas prices rose by 85% there and all gas stations were shuttered. Then China froze and disabled all Chinese ATMs in the country. How do you spell panic? There’s more you aren’t hearing out there. President Trump called both China and Japan last night. No reason or transcript has been released. Chinese president Xi Jinping released a statement afterwards that said China opposed any actions that went against UN security council resolutions, as Japan confirmed it was joining drills with the strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson that is headed to Korean waters.

Rodong Sinmun, the official paper of the Worker’s Party of North Korea, highlighted the US Marines arrival in northern Australia on April 18th. The Marines will be joined by 12 military helicopters including five Cobra helicopters and four Osprey carriers. “This is the largest scale US military presence in Australia after World War 2,” the newspaper reported on Monday. Tomorrow is a another holiday for North Korea and America is watching to see if missiles are launched or a nuke is tested. Either will be seen as a provocation to war. U.S. commercial satellite images indicated increased activity around North Korea’s nuclear test site, while Kim has said that the country’s preparation for an ICBM launch is in its “final stage.” South Korea has said that something could now happen at any time.

The entire U.S. Senate has been invited to the White House for a briefing Wednesday on the North Korea situation, amid escalating tensions over the country’s missile tests and bellicose rhetoric.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed the upcoming briefing, for all 100 senators, on Monday.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats plan to provide the update to lawmakers.

It is rare for the entire Senate to be invited to such a briefing.

Spicer clarified that while the event will take place on the White House campus, it is technically a Senate briefing and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is the one who convened it.

The briefing, first reported by Reuters, was confirmed after President Trump earlier spoke to the leaders of both China and Japan.

A rare briefing will be held Wednesday to brief all 100 Senators at the White House. Mitch McConnell will chair the briefing as Majority Leader. The President himself has called this meeting along with his military leaders. Some say it is for sanctions against the NoKos, but that would be overkill. These types of briefings are called when a President is seeking permission to go to war. Whether that is what this is or not is yet to be seen. A similar briefing of all House members is also being arranged.

All 100 senators have been asked to the White House for the briefing by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the aides said. I don’t know about you, but the war drums just got deafening over here. The briefing will be at 3 pm EST. Tensions over North Korea have been escalating higher and higher over the last couple of weeks. It looks like we may be getting ready to dance after all.

Recent comments by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warning that Iran could follow North Korea’s path of nuclear belligerence, and the Trump administration’s certification, in turn, that Iran is complying with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), seem to send mixed messages. However, any guarantee of Iran’s compliance must grapple with the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors can only inspect declared, and not military or undeclared, nuclear development sites.

“An unchecked Iran has the potential to follow the same path as North Korea and take the world along with it,” said Tillerson at the State Department. “The United States is keen to avoid a second piece of evidence that strategic patience is a failed approach.”

In other words—as we have often argued—the path of “patience,” or waiting, toward Iran means that this totalitarian regime is virtually guaranteed to eventually develop nuclear weapons. The unsigned Iran deal actually legitimizes Iran’s nuclear aspirations by condoning its enrichment of uranium.

The Iranian regime has also been emboldened by this unsigned deal because it supposedly binds the hands of both Congress and President Donald Trump. On April 20, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad-Zarif, tweeted that “Worn-out US accusations can’t mask its admission of Iran’s compliance w/ JCPOA, obligating US to change course & fulfill its own commitments.”

On the campaign trail Donald Trump described the Iran Deal as “the worst deal ever negotiated” and threatened to rip it up. Trump’s actions certifying Iran’s compliance appear to be a marked departure from his earlier campaign promises. But in reality it amounts to a 90-day extension of sanctions relief, part of a review process that was one of few concessions to Congress having a role. Trump said at his press conference with the Italian prime minister on April 20 that Iran has “not lived up to the spirit of the agreement. They have to do that. They have to do that.” Trump said that “they are doing a tremendous disservice to an agreement that was signed. It was a terrible agreement. It shouldn’t have been signed.”

First of all, President Trump, no, it wasn’t signed. It was never signed. And here is the proof. It is a letter from then-Secretary of State John Kerry’s State Department to then-Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), who at the time was on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and is now the CIA director.

Pompeo responded to the State Department letter by posting a press release on his congressional website stating that the “unsigned” deal was “nothing more than a press release and just about as enforceable.” He added that “For the State Department to try to defend the unsigned and non­binding Iran nuclear agreement by calling it a ‘political commitment’ is about as absurd as the terms of the deal itself.” So why is the Trump administration participating in this sham agreement?

As the Times of Israel reports, “he [Trump] is looking for another way to ratchet up pressure on Tehran.” It looks like Trump wants to take a closer look before deciding how to proceed, and this certification that Iran is in compliance was more of a strategic pause than a seal of approval that Iran is living up to its end of the deal. According to the Times of Israel, “Tillerson said the administration has undertaken a full review of the agreement to evaluate whether continued sanctions relief is in the national interest. Tillerson noted that Iran remains a leading state sponsor of terrorism and that President Donald Trump had ordered the review with that in mind.”

What Trump should do is rip up the deal and end sanctions relief toward Iran. New, harsher sanctions should be imposed on this totalitarian dictatorship. At the end of the day, the only real solution to the Iranian problem is regime change.

Yet The Washington Post claims, “If the administration were to decide to walk away or otherwise renege on its commitments, it would open the door for Iran to cast aside its own promises and resume the unfettered development of its nuclear program.” What commitments are these? Refusing to impose more sanctions on Iran despite its sponsorship of terror and human rights abuses?

In fact, the Post reports that the Republican-led Congress is working on extending a number of sanctions, but they have delayed the legislation in order to limit the effect on Iran’s presidential election, “which is scheduled for next month.” Iran shouldn’t just be punished for pursuing nuclear weapons, it should also be punished for its state sponsorship of terror.

While former President Barack Obama also acknowledged that Iran is indeed a state sponsor of terrorism, it is one of only three nations that still remain on the State Department list. Obama said “It helps prop up the Assad regime in Syria. It supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It aids the Houthi rebels in Yemen. So countries in the region are right to be deeply concerned about Iran’s activities, especially its support for violent proxies inside the borders of other nations.” When Obama said it, the media used it to show that he wasn’t trying to appease Iran. That he was tough on Iran. But coming from the Trump administration such a suggestion smacks of reckless belligerence, at least to the establishment media.

Last month, the U.S. and Iran engaged in a tit for tat with sanctions: “Iran hit Raytheon Co., United Technologies Corp. and 13 other U.S. companies with sanctions on Sunday for ‘propping up the Zionist regime’ of Israel, according to Iranian state media, retaliating against U.S.-imposed penalties on entities accused of aiding Iran’s missile program.”

Lost in the reporting is the media’s refusal to admit that Obama’s highly touted nuclear deal with Iran is nothing more than an unsigned collection of political commitments which can be broken by any party at any time. In fact, the media continue their fake news reporting by calling this deal “signed” in order to preserve the integrity of what is commonly viewed by his supporters as Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement. But it’s not clear why Trump calls it “signed.” Maybe he doesn’t know.

Warnings from newspapers such as the Post that a lack of good faith on the part of Trump will lead to a nuclearized Iran ignore the obvious conclusion that Iran will eventually become a nuclear power, and that in its current form the so-called agreement is virtually unenforceable.

Last week, CIA Director Pompeo told a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) audience that “We should all be mindful, given what took place in Syria, and go back and read that JCPOA when it talks about declared facilities and undeclared facilities and how much access the IAEA will have to each of those two very distinct groups.”

“So that might suggest to you what level of certainty we could ever hope to present to the commander in chief,” Pompeo continued. In other words, there is no certainty: if the intelligence community cannot guarantee knowledge of what is happening at undeclared facilities, then Trump, and America as a whole, will be left in the dark about Iran’s nuclear weapons progress. Iran could build the bomb without us finding out until it’s too late. In fact, intelligence experts that I have spoken with believe that Iran may already possess nuclear weapons. The unsigned deal is a document based on trust between the parties, yet Iran is clearly not worthy of such trust.

What we do know is that German intelligence found that Iran sought illegal nuclear technology in 2015. Similarly, Iran continues its ballistic missile tests. As Fred Fleitz—previously of the CIA, the DIA, the State Department and the House Intelligence Committee—has said, “The deal dumbed down the IAEA’s quarterly Iran reports…making it difficult for the world to know the true extent of Iran’s compliance.” The media urgently need to report that the inspections, and unsigned deal, are fatally flawed. But don’t look to a complicit, incestuous media to do anything that might undermine Obama’s legacy.

The Epoch Times newspaper is currently running an editorial series called “The Dead End of Communism” that includes a detailed discussion of the diabolical, even Satanic, roots of Karl Marx, the father of communism. Looking at his writings in detail, the authors document how his goal was “to enact a sort of vengeance against heaven.” Contrary to his “progressive” profile, Marx hated humanity and life on earth. His appeal was that he promised a heaven on earth. But it turned out to be hell for those living under it.

Communism has killed more than 100 million people, and millions more are at risk of death. The people of South Korea and other countries are currently in the crosshairs of Communist North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The communist ruler, Kim Jong-un, has even threatened America with a nuclear attack.

The North Korean nuclear weapons program was assisted by President Bill Clinton’s administration, in the name of stopping it, and the Obama administration did little to contain it. It’s likely that former President Barack Obama informed President Donald Trump about this growing problem, and that this helps explain why Trump has been so concerned, even preoccupied, with the North Korean nuclear threat since he took office.

Of course, the North Korean regime could not survive without the assistance of its communist neighbor, China. So communism is not itself dead. It is very much alive and a real threat. Trump understands this, but continues to be assaulted by the media and their Democratic Party allies about his so-called Russian connection, for which there is no evidence.

A serious examination of the real Russia problem can be found in The Epoch Times series marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. President Trump recognized that Russia has not changed significantly from the old Soviet days when he authorized a U.S. military strike on Russian client state Syria in response to its alleged chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians. Russia’s relationship with Syria and Iran represents the “Red Jihad” that has existed since the days of Lenin, when the founder of the Soviet state urged the “oppressed” Muslims to join in a global campaign against the West.

Meanwhile, communism is very much alive and doing well in Latin America. The communist rulers of Venezuela are in the news for totally mismanaging their once-healthy economy and persecuting their own citizens. And Washington Times investigative journalist Martin Arostegui writes about how Colombia’s FARC communist guerrillas are still in the business of dealing drugs and spreading terrorism.

It was supposed to be a “peace process,” but the serious flaws in the agreement made between the terrorists and the government will have to be fixed if Colombia is going to survive as a free and independent country. “Three months into the agreement’s implementation, the guerrillas have surrendered what critics say is a token number of weapons while the production of coca has skyrocketed from 63,000 hectares in 2013 to 188,000 last year,” writes Arostegui. “Analysts attribute the rise to concessions that the FARC has obtained through the peace process.”

Like the mess in Syria, Obama’s fingerprints are all over this. As the author notes, “President Obama backed the peace process by trying to delist the FARC as a terrorist group to facilitate an agreement. He earmarked $450 million for fiscal 2017 to underwrite the deal, and his secretary of state, John F. Kerry, publicly met with FARC leaders.”

It looks like “peace” in Colombia is similar to the “100 percent” elimination of chemical weapons in Syria.

As President Trump attempts to rally the nation in the face of the North Korean threat, we can see how communism is also very much alive on the streets of America. Communist groups have organized a tour covering nine U.S. cities, from April 4 through the 16th, to mobilize against the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system in South Korea. THAAD is designed to deter a North Korean nuclear attack. It’s the one thing Obama set in motion to help defend South Korea.

Individual endorsers of this campaign include Marxist academic Noam Chomsky and former Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who is now a Fox News contributor.

Remember Kucinich? His Fox News bio notes that he “conducted an exclusive interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to discuss the allegations of the use of chemical weapons alongside FNC’s Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent Greg Palkot.” That was aired on Special Report with Bret Baier back in 2013. After the recent allegations of a chemical attack, Kucinich was back on Fox News saying he didn’t think Assad was behind it.

It’s fascinating that Kucinich is now a leader of the campaign against defending South Korea from a communist attack.

Kucinich says, “It could be argued that the installation of such a system, whether it works or not, is a provocation (‘first the shield, then the sword’). Added to the joint U.S./South Korean military exercises, it places an additional burden of tension to already strained relations with the North. I would instead urge greater reliance upon the wonderful capacity of the Korean people to engage in diplomacy with the brothers and sisters in the North, to avert conflict.”

It is signed by Kucinich with the biographical information, “Member of the United States Congress, 1997-2013. Democratic Candidate for President 2004 and 2008.”

It certainly looks like a major figure in the Democratic Party is acting like a foreign agent for the North Korean regime. There seems to be more evidence of his work on behalf of Kim Jung-un than there is for Trump being a Russian agent.

Is there any likelihood that his fellow Democrats will raise any alarm by this kind of behavior? Will they call for hearings and investigations?

KABUL, Afghanistan (April 13, 2017) – A GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb strikes ISIS-K cave and tunnel systems in the Achin district of the Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan at 7:32 p.m. local time Thursday. The strike was designed to minimize risk to Afghan and U.S. Forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities and eliminate any perceived safe haven for ISIS-K in Afghanistan

***

So what do those caves and tunnels look like that have been used by al Qaeda, bin Ladin and Islamic State?

Meanwhile, Russia and Iran are in meetings regarding Afghanistan. Russia is bragging too about their weapons being bigger than the U.S. MOAB.

The 21,600-pound MOAB was developed in 2003 as a weapon to attack against elite Republican Guard units during the invasion of Iraq. But the bomb, which replaced the Vietnam-era 15,000-pound BLU-82 Daisy Cutter, was not used in that conflict because of the rapidity of Saddam Hussein’s army.

Soon after the Pentagon announced the new weapon, Russia began working on a counterpart. In 2007, it successfully tested the massive thermobaric weapon.

The bomber-dropped bomb is designed to explode midair by ignition of a fuel-air mixture that produces massive blast effects comparable to small tactical nuclear weapons.

“All that is alive merely evaporates,” Gen. Alexander Rukshin, deputy chief of the Russian general staff, was quoted as saying at the time.

Thermobaric devices detonate in two stages, with an initial blast dispersing explosive materials in a cloud that is then ignited by a secondary charge. The explosion generates a much bigger pressure wave than conventional explosives, followed by a vacuum effect that compounds damage and injuries caused by the blast.

Russian sources have claimed their weapon has a power equivalent to 44 tons of TNT – or four times that of the MOAB – despite being somewhat lighter than the U.S. munition at 16,650 pounds. Because of its yield and the extremely high temperatures it generates, it is slated to replace smaller battlefield nukes currently in the Russian arsenal.

When the Russian air force began bombing rebel positions in Syria in September 2015, smaller thermobaric bombs were used against Islamic State positions, but the FOAB was never deployed. More here.

A Special Report from the Accuracy in Media Center for Investigative Journalism; Cliff Kincaid, Director.

Ever since President Trump’s missile strike on Syria on April 6, which angered Russia’s Vladimir Putin, The Washington Post has ever-so-subtly backed away from its robotic “Russian interference to help elect Trump” claims, asserted with absolute certainty. The Post now, on April 7, calls it the “alleged” Russian efforts to “interfere in the 2016 presidential race.” The Post no longer sounds so sure of itself and its anonymous anti-Trump intelligence agency sources.

The U.S. strike on a Syrian air base not only demonstrates that Trump will take decisive action against a Russian client state, but that his predecessor, President Barack Obama, is the real Russian dupe, for making an admittedly flawed agreement with Russia that allowed Syria to keep (and use) some of its chemical weapons.

With the narrative that Trump is/was a Russian agent fading fast, perhaps the media will now get serious about exploring the abundant evidence that the real scandal is the political surveillance of Trump and his associates by the outgoing Obama administration. What’s more, the direct evidence points to Obama’s personal role. The motive? Covering up Obama’s own deals with the Russians on Syria and Iran.

In Syria, Obama had armed one side of the Syrian civil war, through CIA arms shipments to the “rebels,” and had then struck a deal with Russia that gave the appearance of having removed all of the chemical weapons from the arsenal of the other side. The resulting civil war has cost 500,000 lives and left President Trump with a series of bad options. He decided to strike the Shayrat Syrian airbase when he was informed that aircraft from that base conducted the chemical weapons attack on April 4.

On top of this, Trump is also facing the prospect of Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, supposedly limiting Iran’s nuclear weapons development, coming completely apart. In this case, Obama once again joined with the Russians in actually safeguarding a Russian client’s weapons arsenal through an agreement claiming to achieve the opposite.

As we noted in July 2015, Obama actually thanked Putin for bringing about the Iran deal. We said at the time, “This demonstrates something worse than the deal itself and the real nature of the Iranian threat. Putin should thank Obama because the U.S. is helping Iran, Russia’s client state, get tens of billions of dollars in international financial aid. Down the line, Russia gets U.S. approval to supply more weapons to the anti-American regime.”

The Smoking Gun

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) says that what he calls the “smoking gun” revelations about Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice unmasking Trump team names from NSA wiretap databases are “actually eerily similar to what President Trump accused them of” in tweets on March 4. (MSNBC, April 4.)

They point directly to President Obama. Rice surely must have informed her boss during the more than one year period of her “unmasking” Trump campaign and transition team names in NSA wiretap reports on numerous occasions.

Obama’s right-hand adviser Rice herself points to Obama. In the middle of a long MSNBC interview on April 4 discussing Rice’s “unmasking” of names in reports of intercepted Trump team-Russia communications and those communications with no connection to Russia, Rice was evasive but kept dragging Obama into the mix. She never says, for example, that she did unmasking on her own without ever informing Obama, or that she kept it all to herself. She never says that.

Instead, Rice kept implicating Obama whenever she could, while minimizing her own role as somehow a passive one. Rice said that Obama ordered the compilation of intelligence reports on Russian hacking and election interference, which implied that the reports included the unmasked name of Trump adviser Gen. Michael Flynn in wiretap intercept reports of phone calls with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. This is what MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell had been asking Rice about.

MSNBC kept pressing Rice about the NSA-intercepted Flynn conversations with the Russian ambassador in December 2016, which Rice kept trying to dodge until Andrea Mitchell brought up the intercepted Flynn/Russian ambassador “conversations” (plural) one last time, noting that it was after the Obama sanctions and expulsion of Russian spy-diplomats.

Rice finally replied by taking it back to August 2016, and confirming Obama knew about it and was “concerned,” saying:

“Well, Andrea, from basically August [2016] through the end of the [Obama] administration [in January 2017] we were hearing more and more—getting more and more information about Russian interference in our electoral process. It was of grave concern to all of us in the national security team of the President [Obama] and the President himself….

“So YES there was a pace of reporting that accelerated as the Intelligence Community got more and more information on that and shared it with U.S. [Obama] officials…I can say that from when this first came to light in intelligence channels to when the administration ended we got more and more information” (emphasis added except “YES” was Rice’s voice emphasis; bracketed [ ] clarifications added).

The Nature of the Spying

Senator Paul explained that today’s “wiretapping” mainly means “reverse targeting” of existing digital taps that already massively eavesdrop on everyone’s communications, then searching the databases of transcripts, not physically tapping wires to phones. (AIM made the same points in its Special Reports on March 18 and April 4.)

These were not wiretaps about Russia or “incidental collection” on legitimate foreign intelligence subjects, though they may have begun that way. It was clearly procured for partisan political purposes to spy on the Trump opposition using the full weight of the U.S. government’s NSA spying apparatus (or NSA facilities used by the British GCHQ.)

According to Rep. Peter King (R-NY) of the House Intelligence Committee—who was briefed on the contents of the wiretap reports on the Trump campaign and his associates obtained by Rice and other Obama officials—they were like a private investigator’s file, with nothing on Russia-type intelligence:

“This [NSA wiretap] is information about their everyday lives. Who they were talking with, who they were meeting, where they were going to eat… just trying to lay out a dossier on somebody. Sort of like in a divorce case where lawyers are hired, investigators are hired to just find out what a person is doing from morning until night and then you try to piece it together later on” (bracketed [ ] clarification added).

The former Obama defense official and Hillary campaign adviser, Evelyn Farkas, proudly admitted during an MSNBC interview on March 2 that she had urged her “former colleagues” to collect and spread the NSA wiretap intelligence on Russia and Trump and “that’s why you have the leaking!” She had been “getting winks and nods from inside” the Obama administration since last summer, she said in an earlier interview.

MSNBC queried Farkas in response to the just-breaking New York Times March 1 story on Obama officials spreading around the government all the wiretap surveillance data on Trump and associates such as Gen. Flynn, and MSNBC had the Times article up on the video screen. President Trump then tweeted on March 4 that Obama had his “‘wires tapped’” (two words).

The fake news media have ridiculed Trump for claiming anyone “wiretapped” him, insinuating he had said Obama physically tapped his phone wires—when he said no such thing. He merely used simplified terminology in quotes for a short tweet, rather than a book-length definition. FISA law as it stands today talks about “wire” taps or interception, even though it is understood to apply to digital communications (50 U.S. Code 1801 et seq.).

Putin Had No Motive

In an unnoticed piece in Politico on December 12, 2016, Evelyn Farkas, a Russia expert, inadvertently tripped up the entire leftist narrative on the (bogus) Trump-Russia plot, and in effect admitted that Putin had no motive to hack DNC emails and help Trump get elected to be a Russian ally.

This was just a month after the election, so it is fresh in terms of application to the campaign leading up to it. Farkas wrote in Politico:

“For domestic political reasons, Putin needs the United States as its public enemy, given Russia’s current and foreseeable economic situation, and Russian presidential elections are coming up in 2018” (emphasis added).

Farkas explained that any positive “reset” of U.S.-Russia relations by President Trump as a result of purported Putin blackmail of Trump, making Trump his “puppet,” would be “very temporary” because Putin needs the U.S. as his “public enemy,” domestically and internationally (Trump and U.S. make it “international”). Putin doesn’t want good relations with the U.S. even with Trump as its President, according to Farkas.

Farkas apparently still believes Trump may be Putin’s “puppet” but her Russia analysis contradicts her narrative and that of the Democrat/media/intelligence juggernaut against Trump, that it is all a plot to get a pro-Russian president into the Oval Office. President Trump’s missile strike against Russia’s ally, Syria, contradicts that narrative.

Other observers have also noticed a complete lack of any evidence that Putin wanted to interfere in the U.S. election to help Trump win. The New York Review of Books on January 9 published this analysis of the report of the U.S. Intelligence Community (actually only 3 to 5 out of 17 agencies that make up the IC) on Russian interference that had claimed without a shred of evidence that Putin “ordered” the intervention to help Trump get elected.

The author is a Russian-American journalist, Masha Gessen, a hostile anti-Trump ideologue. Yet she candidly admits (in January 9 and March 6 articles):

“…the entirety of the evidence the [U.S. Intelligence Community] report offers to support its estimation of Putin’s motives for allegedly working to elect Trump: [is] conjecture based on other politicians in other periods, on other continents—and also on misreported or mistranslated public statements.”

“…the joint intelligence report on Russian interference in the campaign…is, plainly, laughable…the protracted national game of connecting the Trump-Putin dots is an exercise in conspiracy thinking.”

“Both of these appointments [Gen. McMaster and Russia expert Fiona Hill]—and the fact that sanctions [against Russia] remain in place six weeks into Trump’s fast-moving presidency—contradict the ‘Putin’s puppet’ narrative (as does the fact that Russian domestic propaganda has already turned against Trump). But such is the nature of conspiracy thinking that facts can do nothing to change it.”

“If…[Trump is impeached], it will have resulted largely from a media campaign orchestrated by members of the [U.S.] intelligence community—setting a dangerous political precedent that will have corrupted the public sphere and promoted paranoia” (emphasis added; bracketed [ ] clarifications added).

To sum up: No evidence, and no motive, is known for Russia hacking the DNC/Podesta emails to elect Trump or interfere with the election to defeat Hillary and support Trump. No smoking gun evidence, not even a whiff of smoke.

Surely such a “smoking gun” would have leaked by now—since Lt. General Flynn’s trivial conversation with Russian ambassador Kislyak on December 29, intercepted by NSA digital wiretap, leaked within weeks to David Ignatius of The Washington Post—and got Flynn fired. That was just a few words saying that the Trump administration will deal with Obama’s expulsion of 35 Russian “diplomats” (spies) later, with not a hint of any promises or relief, and no mention even of the word “sanctions” (evidently leading Flynn to forget the conversation).

The fact that no “smoking gun” has leaked or even been hinted at makes us suspect that in fact the unmasked NSA wiretap transcripts actually prove the opposite of the leftist Democrat Party narrative—that they record positive evidence that Trump and his associates were not colluding with Russia, that they had nothing to do with the hacking or leaking of the DNC or the Podesta/Hillary emails or any Russian interference in the election.

Obama’s Motive

It seems that the Trump-Putin conspiracy theory was designed to cover or excuse the illegal surveillance of Trump and his associates by the Obama administration. One of the motives may have been that Obama was fearful that the deals he struck with Putin on Syria and Iran would come unraveled. He had to know that he and his associates, including Susan Rice and former Secretary of State John Kerry, would look like dupes of the Russians for making such flawed agreements.

In order to brace for these developments, the idea was hatched to accuse Trump and his associates of being the Russian dupes, using their innocent contacts with Russian officials or businessmen as the excuse for surveillance. This made Trump look like the Russian dupe and Obama as the tough guy with Putin.

But the conversations captured in NSA digital wiretaps are turning out to be the opposite of the Democrat/media narrative. The remarks between Trump associates and Russian officials make it clear that no real relationship existed, that no insidious conspiracy was in play, that public events such as the WikiLeaks email releases were annoyances, that the “Trump dossier” was known to be fake, etc.

In fact, The New York Times has been forced to admit that the only thing anyone has turned up even in “intercepted calls” and “phone records” are benign “multiple contacts between Trump associates and Russians who serve in or are close to Mr. Putin’s government.”

Note in The New York Times quotes how the phony “Trump dossier” is always dragged in because the leaked NSA wiretaps show nothing, even on their face, that is incriminating or damaging to Trump, and only the “dossier” can (purportedly) supply that.

This was in The New York Times on March 3, the day before President Trump tweeted about the Obama “‘wire tapping’” against him, when it was still heroic in the left-wing narrative to admit to leaking highly classified NSA intelligence to try to destroy the President:

“Current and former American officials have said that phone records and [NSA-type] intercepted calls show that members of Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.”

“There have been courtesy calls, policy discussions and business contacts [in the intercepted phone calls of Trump campaign and associates], though nothing has emerged publicly indicating anything more sinister. A dossier of allegations on Trump-Russia contacts, compiled by a former British intelligence agent for Mr. Trump’s political opponents, includes unproven claims that his aides collaborated in Russia’s hacking of Democratic targets” (emphasis added; paras. reordered; bracketed [ ] clarification added).

“Former diplomats and Russia specialists say it would have been absurd and contrary to American interests for the Trump team to avoid meetings with Russians, either during or since the campaign.”

Intelligence agency officials have consistently denied finding any evidence for such Trump collusion with the Russians despite furious efforts to prove it in order to take down President Trump. The best anyone has come up with is the stupid claim that some internet “IP addresses” of attempted hackings trace back to Russian IP domains, when anyone with the slightest tech savvy knows that expert hackers cover their tracks to prevent such easy tracing, and even plant false trails (such as those pointing to, for example, Russian IP internet addresses).

No one has traced any specific hacking attempt to specifically attempt to capture the DNC emails, only alleged hacking attempts against the main DNC computer system. DNC emails are separated from the DNC computer system by the usual email client firewalls.

Trump himself pointed that out last year when these falsehoods first surfaced, that the supposed “Russian hackers” could be someone in New Jersey, etc., and that sophisticated hackers would not get caught digitally. Recently, the CIA’s hacker tools for planting false trails and the concealment of cybertraces were themselves leaked or hacked to WikiLeaks, causing worldwide consternation.

The pernicious misuse of the fake “Trump dossier” as an investigative “roadmap” by the FBI has been reported by The New York Times for months (with less dramatic prose than the BBC’s). (New York Times, January 20, February 14.) Instead, the Times should be investigating and exposing the “dossier’s” glaringly obvious fraudulent nature and the political motives behind its compilation and release. The NSA’s (and/or British GCHQ’s) “actively monitored” surveillance of Trump communications reportedly has been justified on the basis of this fake sex tape “dossier.”

Thus, the Obama digital Watergate burglary even invades the bedroom, albeit in the fictional narrative of the “dossier.”

According to that CW disarmament specialist, ОБАС-250-235П is one and only Sov/Rus aviation bomb to spread Sarin. That looks like filler cappic.twitter.com/1sSpNdHt0m and Associated Press is reporting:

Senior U.S. official says U.S. has concluded that Russia knew in advance of Syria’s chemical weapons attack last week – AP

So….

Who lied? Susan Rice? Yes, John Kerry? Yes, Barack Obama….especially yes. While John Kerry worked with Russia to eliminate the ‘declared’ chemical weapons in Syria…note below it refers to mustard gas. When Russia presented the document to the Obama administration, we signed it as well. So, the Assad regime, Putin, Iran and the Obama White House all have their feet in this swamp. Got that?

Also note the percentage of the CW inventory destroyed…hummm right?

Release No: NR-052-14
January 27, 2014

M/V Cape Ray Deployment

Today the Department of Defense announced the deployment of M/V Cape Ray from Portsmouth, Va. M/V Cape Ray is the primary contribution of the Department of Defense toward international efforts to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons material program. Over the last several months, hundreds of government and contract personnel have worked tirelessly to prepare the vessel to neutralize Syrian chemical materials and precursors using proven hydrolysis technology. This achievement could not have been possible without these remarkable contributions.

The United States remains committed to ensuring its neutralization of Syria’s chemical materials prioritizes the safety of people, protects the environment, follows verification procedures of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and with applicable standards. All waste from the hydrolysis process on M/V Cape Ray will be safely and properly disposed of at commercial facilities to be determined by the OPCW. No hydrolysis byproducts will be released into the sea or air. M/V Cape Ray will comply with all applicable international laws, regulations, and treaties.

It is the responsibility of the Assad regime to transport the chemical materials safely to facilitate their removal for destruction. The international community is poised to meet the milestones set forth by the OPCW, including the June 30 target date for the total destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons materials. The United States joins the OPCW and the United Nations in calling on the Assad regime to intensify its efforts to ensure its international obligations and commitment are met so these materials may be removed from Syria as quickly and safely as possible.

Arms Control

Transfer of Syrian Chemicals to Cape Ray is Complete

A trailer operator for Medcenter Container Terminal transfers a container from the M/V Ark Futura, a Danish cargo ship, along the dock to the loading deck of M/V Cape Ray during operations at the Italian port of Gioia Tauro, July 2, 2014. The Cape Ray is tasked with the neutralization of specific chemical materials from Syria in accordance with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons guidelines while operating in international waters. U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Desmond Parks

WASHINGTON, July 3, 2014 — The transfer of Syrian chemicals from the Danish container ship Ark Futura to the Motor Vessel Cape Ray has been completed, Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Adm. John Kirby said in a statement issued yesterday.

After the transfer was made in the Italian port of Gioia Tauro, Kirby said in the statement, the Cape Ray departed yesterday for international waters in the Mediterranean Sea to emp loy its onboard system to neutralize the chemicals.

Kirby’s statement reads as follows:

The transfer of Syrian chemicals from the Danish container ship Ark Futura to the Motor Vessel Cape Ray is complete. Cape Ray departed the Italian port of Gioia Tauro this afternoon for international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, where neutralization operations will soon begin. The neutralization process should take several weeks to complete.

Secretary Hagel is grateful to Danish and Italian authorities for their support in this process and is enormously proud of everyone who helped make possible this safe and incident-free transfer. He extends a special thanks to the men and women of the Cape Ray, Naval Forces Europe, and U.S. European Command teams for their impeccable planning and execution.

The vessel — part of the Transportation Department Maritime Administration’s Ready Reserve Force program — left Portsmouth, Va., Jan. 27. Hundreds of government and contract personnel worked for several months to prepare the vessel to neutralize Syrian chemical materials and precursors using hydrolysis technology.

“When Syria has completed removal of its chemical materials, MV Cape Ray will depart Rota and proceed to the transloading port in Italy, where she will take the chemicals on board,” Warren said in a statement announcing the vessel’s arrival in Spain. “Our ship is prepared and our crew is trained to safely neutralize Syria’s chemical materials. We stand ready to fulfill our contributions to this international effort; it is time for Syria to live up to their obligations to the international community.”

By offering Rota for a port of call before MV Cape Ray receives a load of chemical materials and embarks on the destruction phase of its mission, Spain is making a contribution to the United Nations-sanctioned multinational effort to rid Syria of its chemical weapons materials, officials at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid said.

The United States plans to neutralize the chemicals at sea in international waters using proven hydrolysis technology, embassy officials added. All waste from the hydrolysis process aboard MV Cape Ray will be safely and properly stored on board until it is disposed of at commercial facilities to be determined by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, they added, emphasizing that no hydrolysis byproducts will be released into the sea or air.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sent a message to the Cape Ray’s crew, wishing them well as they left Portsmouth.

“As you all know, your task will not be easy,” Hagel wrote. “Your days will be long and rigorous. But your hard work, preparation and dedication will make the difference.

“You are ready,” the secretary continued. “We all have complete confidence in each of you. You represent the best of our nation, not only because of your expertise and commitment, but because of your willingness to serve when called upon. For that, we will always be grateful. We are also grateful to your families for the love and support they have given you. On behalf of our country and the American people, I wish you much success. Take care of yourselves. God bless you all.”

***

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2014 – Specialists on the U.S. container ship M/V Cape Ray continue their work in the Mediterranean Sea, neutralizing chemical materials from Syria and contributing to what the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, on August 7 confirmed as the destruction of 74.2 percent of Syria’s chemical stockpile.

U.S. military and civilian specialists aboard the ship began using the field deployable hydrolysis system to neutralize Syrian chemical materials on July 7, Director of Pentagon Press Operations Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters at the time, anticipating that it would take about 60 days to complete the job.

On August 5 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground-Edgewood Team CBRNE capabilities showcase, Adam Baker, a chemical engineer and project manager with the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, detailed the hard work that went into turning a land-based hydrolysis system into a field-deployable system in just five months.

“We had a gap in capabilities for a system that was transportable, that could be operated out of a remote location and that would [process] bulk liquid agent at high throughputs.”

The system had to be able to be transported to a remote site and set up and be sufficient with a supply of reagents and diesel fuel, Baker explained.

The project was given the go-ahead in February 2013. In November 2013, he said, “That’s when they made the decision to start putting it on the Cape Ray.”

The timeline was short, Baker said, and they couldn’t start from scratch with a new system, so they used a process from the former Aberdeen Chemical Demilitarization Facility, or ABCDF, that had been used a decade ago to neutralize 1,700 tons of mustard – part of the destruction of the United States’ own chemical stockpile.

Baker said the engineers compressed that process into transportable, standardized shipping containers. They had two titanium reactors they could use for the Cape Ray that made it easier for rapid deployment of the two systems that are now on the ship.

One of the Cape Ray’s most critical design factors for the system, Baker said, “was that everything we needed had to go on that ship. Instead of having trucks come in every day and bring the reagent and trucks go out every day with your waste, all of those containers had to go on the ship.”

At least 269 of the standardized shipping containers are on the ship, holding everything the specialists and crew need and everything the hydrolysis process needs and then creates. Nothing is dumped from the ship. More here.

If you still think the chemical weapons attack was fake news, read on. Further, it must be stated that the Pentagon and CIA have extraordinary skills and ability to gather quality intelligence, intelligence that was gained under the Obama administration and did not stop the program but rather deferred it to Russia to handle. This was done under threat by Tehran to the Obama White House to leave Assad alone during the JPOA, the Iran nuclear talks. Obama complied.

For Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and for U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley to lay the blame at the feet of Russia and Iran for the Assad/Syria chemical weapons program was exact and right.

Bassem Al-Hassan, the head of the Syrian clandestine unit for special assignments, was appointed the position after Muhammad Suleiman, another key aide to Assad, was assassinated in his home in August 2008, Western intelligence sources told Fox News.

Hassan is also considered a very close friend and contact to Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard general, and has connections with Russian officials.

Western intelligence sources said Hassan was the head of Unit 450, Syria’s chemical weapons unit, and was responsible for any activities, including producing and ordering the weapons for the department.

Syria agreed in 2013 to destroy its stockpiles of chemical weapons as part of a deal brokered between former President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin. A year later, then-Secretary of State John Kerry said that Syria’s chemical weapons were “100 percent” destroyed.

The statement came into question on Tuesday when a chemical weapons attack in an opposition-held town in northern Syria killed more than 80 people, including at least 30 children. The U.S. blamed Assad for the attack.

President Trump on Friday authorized to launch 60 U.S. Tomahawk missiles on the Shayrat air base, southeast of Homs, in retaliation to the chemical weapons attack. The Pentagon said the airstrikes will not eliminate the country’s chemical weapons supply completely, but reduce the government’s ability to deliver them.

2013: A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials.

The movements of chemical weapons by Syria’s elite Unit 450 could complicate any U.S. bombing campaign in Syria over its alleged chemical attacks, officials said. It also raises questions about implementation of a Russian proposal that calls for the regime to surrender control of its stockpile, they said.

U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies still believe they know where most of the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons are located, but with less confidence than six months ago, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. alleges a chemical-weapons attack by the Syrian government on Aug. 21 killed more than 1,400 people, including at least 400 children. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday again denied any involvement in a chemical attack, but he said his government was prepared to sign an agreement banning the use of chemical weapons. Syrian officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the weapons.

Unit 450 – a branch of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center that manages the regime’s overall chemicals weapons program – has been moving the stocks around for months, officials and lawmakers briefed on the intelligence said.

The unit is in charge of mixing and deploying chemical munitions, and it provides security at chemical sites, according to U.S. and European intelligence agencies. It is composed of officers from Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect. One diplomat briefed on the unit said it was Alawite from “janitor to commander.”

U.S. military officials have looked into the possibility of gaining influence over members of Unit 450 through inducements or threats. “In a perfect world, you would actually like to co-opt that unit. Who cares who pays them as long as they sit on the chemical weapons,” said a senior U.S. military official.

Although the option remains on the table, government experts say the unit is so close-knit that they doubt any member could break ranks without being exposed and killed.

The U.S. estimates the regime has 1,000 metric tons of chemical and biological agents. “That is what we know about. There might be more,” said one senior U.S. official.

The regime traditionally kept most of its chemical and biological weapons at a few large sites in western Syria, U.S. officials said. But beginning about a year ago, the Syrians started dispersing the arsenal to nearly two dozen major sites.

Unit 450 also started using dozens of smaller sites. The U.S. now believes Mr. Assad’s chemical arsenal has been scattered to as many as 50 locations in the west, north and south, as well as new sites in the east, officials said.

The U.S. is using satellites to track vehicles employed by Unit 450 to disperse the chemical-weapons stocks. But the imagery doesn’t always show what is being put on the trucks. “We know a lot less than we did six months ago about where the chemical weapons are,” one official said.

The movements, activities and base locations of Unit 450 are so sensitive that the U.S. won’t share information with even trusted allies in the opposition for fear the unit would be overrun by rebels, said current and former U.S. officials.

The U.S. wants any military strikes in Syria to send a message to the heads of Unit 450 that there is a steep price for following orders to use chemical weapons, U.S. officials said.

At the same time, the U.S. doesn’t want any strike to destabilize the unit so much that it loses control of its chemical weapons, giving rebels a chance to seize the arsenal.

“Attacking Unit 450, assuming we have any idea where they actually are, would be a pretty tricky affair because”¦if you attack them you may reduce the security of their weapons, which is something we certainly don’t want,” said Jeffrey White, a veteran of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a defense fellow at The Washington Institute.

Within Syria, little is known about Unit 450 or the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center. One of the buildings is in a sprawling complex on the outskirts of Damascus.

Even high-ranking defectors from the Syrian military that form the core of the rebel insurgency – including those who served in units trained to handle chemical attacks – said they hadn’t heard of Unit 450.

The Pentagon has prepared multiple target lists for possible strikes, some of which include commanders of Unit 450.

But a senior U.S. official said no decision has been made to target them, reflecting the challenge of sending a message to Unit 450 without destabilizing it.

In some respects, officials said, the hands-on role that Unit 450 plays in safeguarding the regime’s chemical weapons secrets makes it too valuable for the U.S. to eliminate, even though the U.S. believes the unit is directly responsible for the alleged chemical weapons abuses.

The Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center answers only to Mr. Assad and the most senior members of his clan, according to U.S. and European officials. Attack orders are forwarded to a commanding officer within Unit 450.

If the Russians clinch a deal for Mr. Assad to give up his chemical weapons, any prospective United Nations-led force to protect inspectors and secure storage sites would likely need to work closely with Unit 450 and the research center, current and former administration officials said.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that President Barack Obama directed him to plan for “a militarily significant strike” that would deter the Assad regime’s further use of chemical weapons and degrade the regime’s military capability to employ chemical weapons in the future.

But officials said the U.S. doesn’t plan to bomb chemical weapons sites directly because of concerns any attack would disperse poison agents and put civilians at risk.

In addition to satellites, the U.S. also relies on Israeli spies for on-the-ground intelligence about the unit, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

Though small in size, Unit 450 controls a vast infrastructure that makes it easier for the U.S. and Israel to track its movements. Chemical weapons storage depots are guarded by the unit within larger compounds to provide multiple layers of security, U.S. officials said.

Whenever chemical munitions are deployed in the field, Unit 450 has to pre-deploy heavy equipment to chemical mixing areas, which the U.S. and Israel can track.

It looks like Russia and Iran are drawing their own red lines today. They are threatening deadly force if America strikes Syria again after last week’s proportional response to Assad gassing his own people. President Trump ordered the firing of 60 Tomahawk missiles at an airbase in Syria, which destroyed most of the base. The act humiliated Vladimir Putin who now feels he must step up his game. Iran went silent, which worries me… Iran and Hezbollah have their sights set on Israel and the silence indicates to me a preparation for strikes, not a backing down. “We will respond to any aggression powerfully, as Russia and Iran would never allow the U.S. to dominate the world,” read a statement issued by the Syria-Iran-Russia Joint Operations Room, a combination of forces operating on behalf of Assad in Syria. The statement was first published in Iran’s state-controlled media.

We are very close to war now and it would not take much for all out skirmishes to break out. President Trump did the right thing last week… he responded to Assad appropriately. It should have been done long ago. There is no way to avoid the coming confrontation with the New Axis of Evil: Russia, Iran, China and North Korea. Right now, we have the USS Champlain, USS Meyer and USS Murphy, along with a nuclear weapon launch submarine en route to the Korean peninsula. We also have a military presence in the South China Sea. So now we are facing military threats on at least three fronts, four if you count the Straits of Hormuz.

From The Sun:

The command centre for the two countries and allied groups released a joint statement today saying they would ‘respond to future breaches of red lines with force’.

RUSSIA and Iran have said they will respond to further American military actions following the air strike in Syria last week.

In a joint statement, the command centre for the two countries and allied groups said: “We will respond to any aggression.”

The statement read: “What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani strongly condemned the missile strikes as a “flagrant US aggression on Syria.” Iran is financing Assad and is a strong ally. They are interested in Syria’s seaports. Rouhani is calling for an impartial investigation into the chemical attack that killed at least 83 people. In other words, the UN, which is now populated by dictators, communists and radical Islamists. He warned that the American strikes in response risked escalating extremism in the region, reported Iranian state television. Let me translate… that means Iran will unleash even more terrorist strikes. Russia is in this for geographic control and energy resources.

In a phone call with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, Rouhani told him: “Allegations that Syria launched the chemical attack were just a pretext to disrupt the Syrian peace process.” The evidence that Syria propagated the attack is overwhelming. The rebels do not have the funds or the technology to mass produce Sarin. They also don’t have a delivery system. I understand the plane that dropped the Sarin was a Russian plane outfitted for just such a move. But it could have been Syrian aircraft just as easily.

President Trump has had massive support for his military move across the planet. Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Australia, France, Germany and the EU as a whole have voiced their strong support for the missile strike.

But Assad is doubling down and is now bombing the same town he gassed. The Syrian state news agency SANA said Assad told Rouhani the Syrian people and army were “determined to crush terrorism in every part of Syrian territory” – a reference to the rebels who have been fighting his bloody rule for six years. He also thanked Rouhani for Iran’s support for “the Syrian nation.” In a speech on Sunday, Rouhani also criticized US-allied Gulf Arab states for endorsing the missile strike. He said: “Unfortunately, there are countries in our own region which encourage America’s acts of aggression.” He warned: “Your turn will come too.” We will see what develops this week… the war drums are deafening now.

The diplomatic row was sparked by the US bombing a Syrian airbase (pictured) in response to Assad’s chemical weapon attacks.

The strike was designed to warn Assad not to use chemical weapons on his citizens.